The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University
has awarded four new Environmental Venture Projects (EVP) grants
for interdisciplinary research aimed at finding practical solutions
promoting global sustainability.

Four faculty teams will receive a total of $787,013 over the
next two years to tackle a broad range of environmental challenges,
from the open savannahs of East Africa to the big cities of
India.

The four projects were selected from an initial pool of 28
letters of intent submitted to the EVP faculty committee led by
Scott Fendorf, professor of environmental Earth system science, and
Elizabeth Hadly, professor of biology.

"The projects we're funding this year include 16 Stanford
faculty, 11 of whom are new to the EVP program," said Fendorf, a
senior fellow at the Woods Institute. "It's a true cross-section of
the campus, representing nine departments in five schools Business,
Earth Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and Humanities and
Sciences."

Thirty-seven EVP grants totaling more than $5.4 million have
been awarded to faculty in all seven schools at Stanford since the
annual program was established in 2004. To encourage broad faculty
participation in the future, the Woods Institute will host its
second annual EVP Forum on Oct. 1. The event will feature updates
of recent projects and offer guidelines for developing competitive
faculty proposals for the 2011 round of grants.

"Our goal is to provide support for truly innovative projects
that are unlikely to get seed funding from traditional sources,"
Hadly said. "While interdisciplinary teamwork is important, we
strongly encourage proposals that are solutions-oriented and
transformational."

Here are the four projects awarded EVP grants this year:

The Effects of Wildlife Loss and Land Use Change on
Rodent-Borne Disease Risk in East Africa: This project explores
whether the loss of large wildlife and changes in land use increase
the risk of infectious disease in developing tropical
countries.

Rethinking the Balance between Future Obesity and Malnutrition
with Climate Change: The goal is to develop a computer model
capable of evaluating nutrition‐related health policies in
India, taking into account the impact of climate change on
agricultural production and food availability.

Can Better Management Raise Growth and Reduce Pollution? This
EVP explores how better management practices in industrial plants
can improve both energy efficiency and productivity. Stanford's
Precourt Energy Efficiency Center will provide 50 percent of the
funding for this project.

PI: Aprajit Mahajan (Economics).

Co-PIs: Nick Bloom (Economics), John Kunz (Civil and
Environmental Engineering) and John Roberts (Graduate School of
Business).

Understanding the Carbon Cycle in Terrestrial and Marine
Ecosystems with Field-Based Measurements Using a Revolutionary
Isotopic Technique: To understand how climate and erosion affect
the transport of carbon in freshwater and marine ecosystems, the
research team will design a portable spectrometer using a novel
technology that measures stable carbon isotopes in the field.